Początki przemysłu naftowego w Galicji przed okresem autonomii w świetle wybranych polskich tytułów prasowych

Abstract

BEGINNINGS OF THE OIL INDUSTRY IN GALICIA BEFORE THE PERIOD OF AUTONOMY IN THE LIGHT OF SELECTED POLISH PRESS TITLES

The publication of newspapers and the extraction and use of crude oil were undoubtedly among the socio-economic areas that significantly affected the lives of people in the 19th century. At the time, newspapers and journals played the role of the most important and popular sources of information about crude oil and its products, especially kerosene, and they shaped their readers’ worldviews on those products’ uses in the economy and everyday life.
This paper presents the beginning of the oil industry in Austrian Galicia in pre-autonomy Galicia in the Polish news press (Czas, Gazeta Narodowa, Gazeta Lwowska) and economic magazines (Gazeta Przemysłowa, Korespondent Handlowy, Przemysłowy i Rolniczy, Tygodnik Rolniczo-Przemysłowy).
The first mentions in the press on the subject appeared in the 1850s. In the 1860s, oil-related subjects were broadly represented in daily newspapers and in the economic press. In agricultural journals, especially in the Prussian and Russian partitions, oil-related subjects were not present in titles from the 1850s and 60s. The first group of texts consisted of articles about crude oil (chemical properties) and regions which were rich in petroleum. In areas where it was present, crude oil had been known and used for a long time, but to the readership of newspapers and journals it was a new resource. It is no wonder then that the press was explaining what it was and what its uses were. The press did not focus on Galicia’s deposits of crude oil, earthwax and natural gas, but did print detailed information on their sources around the world, especially in the United States (the names of oil fields, the volume and monetary value of extraction and export to Europe). The press saw the American mass production and sale of oil to Europe as the greatest threat to the Galician industry.
The press documented the economic situation of the Galician oil industry (petroleum mining, oil refinery, business people) and speculated on its future position in Galicia’s economic system. It speculated that the oil industry would become an important branch of the economy. When writing about the oil industry, the press reported on the first mines (Bóbrka, Borysław), entrepreneurs, the presence of oil products on agricultural and industrial expositions organised in Kraków, Rzeszów and Jasło.
Another subject discussed by the press was articles on the trade of paraffin oil. The development of the Galician oil industry had also become a pretext to debate on its role in everyday life. In the opinion of the press, oil lamps would be used as street lighting and at home illuminating the whole room. These newspaper advertisements showed new products connected with the oil industry such as different kinds of paraffin oil and oil lamps.